If you copied the March SAT date from a prep company's calendar, check it again. College Board lists the spring weekend test as 6 March 2027, with registration closing 19 February. At least two widely read prep sites still show 13 March and a 26 February deadline. A student who trusts that version misses the real deadline by a week and the late deadline by three days.
This page sets out every SAT test date for 2026-27 with its registration deadline, its late and change deadline, and its score release date, all taken from College Board's own dates page, its printed calendar and its score release table. Then it does the part a list cannot: which date fits an early application, which pairs of dates let a retaker see one score before committing to the next, and how a junior should sequence the year.
Key Takeaways
- There are eight weekend SAT dates in 2026-27. Four remain: 5 December 2026, then 6 March, 1 May and 5 June 2027.
- Every deadline follows one pattern: registration closes 15 days before the test, and late registration, changes and the cheaper cancellation close 11 days before.
- There is no weekend SAT between 5 December and 6 March, a gap of 91 days.
- For a 1 November early deadline, 3 October was the last date with scores in hand before submitting. Next year's equivalent is the updated 9 October 2027, not the 2 October some sites list.
- June is the slow release: the 5 June 2027 SAT reports on 21 June, sixteen days later instead of thirteen.
The full 2026-27 SAT calendar
Eight Saturdays, five in the autumn and three in the spring. The table is built from College Board's SAT dates and deadlines page and its score release dates, with the August and September deadlines taken from the printed 2026-27 calendar, since the live page has already dropped them.
| SAT date | Registration deadline | Late, change and cancel deadline | Student scores |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Aug 2026 (given) | 7 Aug | 11 Aug | 4 Sept |
| 12 Sept 2026 (given) | 28 Aug | 1 Sept | 25 Sept |
| 3 Oct 2026 (given) | 18 Sept | 22 Sept | 16 Oct |
| 7 Nov 2026 (given) | 23 Oct | 27 Oct | 20 Nov |
| 5 Dec 2026 | 20 Nov | 24 Nov | 18 Dec |
| 6 Mar 2027 | 19 Feb | 23 Feb | 19 Mar |
| 1 May 2027 | 16 Apr | 20 Apr | 14 May |
| 5 Jun 2027 | 21 May | 25 May | 21 Jun |
All weekend deadlines expire at 11:59 p.m. Eastern, wherever you live, and the dates apply to US and international students alike. Schools usually see each weekend score in the K-12 reporting portal three days after students do; in June both land on 21 June.
Two things the grid makes obvious. The autumn is crowded, with five tests in fifteen weeks. The spring is thin, with three tests spread across three months. A student who plans to "take it again in the new year" is really planning to take it in March.
Is the March 2027 SAT on 6 March or 13 March?
6 March 2027. College Board's dates page lists 6 March with registration closing 19 February and the late and change deadline on 23 February, and its downloadable 2026-27 calendar flyer prints the same three dates. The score release table confirms it from the other side: student scores for the 6 March test arrive on 19 March.
The 13 March version comes from projections published before College Board announced the spring. PrepScholar's future test dates page, last updated June 2025, still shows 13 March 2027 with a 26 February deadline and a 2 March late deadline. AdmissionSight lists 13 March as an "anticipated" spring date. Both were projections made before the spring calendar existed. Neither is the date.
The danger is in the deadline, not the test day. A family working from 26 February would believe they had nearly a week in hand on 20 February, when in fact regular registration had closed the day before. By 24 February, College Board's late window has also shut. The only remaining route is the waitlist, which is not a seat.
One habit avoids this whole class of error: take dates from College Board's page, then check the score release table agrees. If a test has a score release date, it is real.
What each SAT deadline actually controls
Every 2026-27 weekend date follows the same arithmetic. Regular registration closes on the Friday 15 days before the test. The change deadline falls on the Tuesday 11 days before, and three separate things close on it at once.
- Late registration. Open worldwide until the change deadline, for an extra 38 dollars on top of the 68 dollar registration fee. Free with a fee waiver.
- Changing test centre. 34 dollars. Changing the date is a different matter: College Board's fee page says that "to change the test date, you must cancel and register for a new test".
- The cheaper cancellation. Cancelling by the change deadline costs 34 dollars. After it, the fee rises to 44 dollars, and the final cut-off is 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the Thursday before test day.
Students testing outside the United States pay a 43 dollar international fee on top of registration, and some test centres, in places such as Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and South Korea, add their own centre fee. Prices belong in body text because they change; check College Board's test fees page before you pay.
Two earlier cut-offs sit outside that pattern. A student borrowing a device from College Board must register and request it at least 30 days before test day, which is before regular registration closes. And the waitlist, available to US residents since spring 2026, costs nothing extra but requires paying the full registration up front. College Board places waitlisted students into open seats until three days before the test and refunds the registration automatically if no seat appears, though late fees are not refunded.
The mechanics of moving or dropping a registration, including what happens if you simply do not show up, are covered step by step in our guide to changing or cancelling an SAT registration.
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Book a Free Consultation →Which SAT dates let you see a score before the next deadline?
Only four of the seven back-to-back pairs give a clean wait-and-see. Score release runs thirteen days after most tests, and the next late deadline often arrives sooner than that. Line the two tables up and the year divides neatly.
| First test | Its scores arrive | Next test's late deadline | Wait and see? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Aug | 4 Sept | 1 Sept (for 12 Sept) | No, 3 days short |
| 12 Sept | 25 Sept | 22 Sept (for 3 Oct) | No, 3 days short |
| 3 Oct | 16 Oct | 27 Oct (for 7 Nov) | Yes, before the regular 23 Oct deadline too |
| 7 Nov | 20 Nov | 24 Nov (for 5 Dec) | Tight: 4 days, and scores land on the regular deadline day |
| 5 Dec | 18 Dec | 23 Feb (for 6 Mar) | Yes, with two months spare |
| 6 Mar | 19 Mar | 20 Apr (for 1 May) | Yes |
| 1 May | 14 May | 25 May (for 5 Jun) | Yes, before the regular 21 May deadline too |
The November to December pair is the awkward one, and it is the one live right now. November scores and December registration both land on 20 November. The workable move is to register for December by 20 November and treat 24 November as the decision date, cancelling for 34 dollars if the November score was enough. Our December SAT deadlines guide covers that window, the device cut-off and the December fees in detail.
For the rest of the year the practical rule is simple: the spring pairs give you time to think, and the late-summer pairs force you to commit to two tests before you have seen either score. Why the release takes almost two weeks, and what the report contains when it arrives, is set out in when SAT scores come out.
Which SAT date fits early decision, early action and regular deadlines?
Work backwards from the deadline, then check the college's own score policy, because the policy sometimes extends the window. For a 1 November early deadline, the last 2026-27 SAT whose scores reached students before submission was 3 October, released 16 October. That fortnight is time to decide whether to send the score at all.
The 7 November SAT counts only where a college says so. MIT is the clearest example: its deadlines page says Early Action applications are due 1 November, but applicants "must take required tests before November 30 for EA, and before December 31 for RA". So at MIT the November SAT works for Early Action and the 5 December SAT works for Regular Action, whose application deadline is 4 January. Other colleges draw the line elsewhere, and some stop at October.
For regular decision with a deadline in early January, 5 December is the final weekend date, and its 18 December release leaves time to send scores. If you are still weighing which early route to take, the binding and non-binding differences are laid out in early decision versus early action.
How should a junior sequence SAT dates?
Aim for two scores before senior year begins, with the first one early enough to act on. A junior in the class of 2028 has already sat, or will soon sit, the PSAT/NMSQT in school during the 1 to 30 October 2026 window. That gives a baseline. From there, one sequence that fits the calendar looks like this.
- First SAT: 5 December 2026 or 6 March 2027. December gives a score before the winter break and the full spring to work on it. March suits a student who wants the winter for preparation.
- Check for SAT School Day. Many schools give the SAT in class time during the spring window of 1 March to 30 April 2027. The school registers students, so ask the counsellor before paying for a weekend date. How the two versions differ is covered in SAT School Day versus the weekend SAT.
- Second SAT: 1 May or 5 June 2027. Mind the AP collision. The 2027 AP Exams run from 3 to 14 May, so 1 May is the Saturday immediately before AP week one. A junior with three AP exams may do better in June, accepting the slower 21 June score release.
- Senior-year fallback: 28 August, 18 September or 9 October 2027. These are College Board's anticipated dates, and all three fall before a 1 November 2027 early deadline.
The sequence matters more than the count. Two tests with real preparation between them beat three tests taken a month apart with nothing changed in between.
Anticipated SAT dates for 2027-28
College Board has published anticipated weekend dates for the following year, so a current sophomore can plan now.
- Autumn 2027: 28 August, 18 September, 9 October, 6 November and 4 December.
- Spring 2028: 4 March, 6 May and 3 June.
The October date carries an "Updated" label on College Board's page, because it moved. Some sites still show 2 October 2027, and one names it as the last SAT date for 1 November 2027 early deadlines. The current date is 9 October. These are still anticipated rather than final, and registration deadlines are not yet published, so expect the 15-day and 11-day pattern to hold but confirm it when registration opens.
Sunday testing and international students
Students who cannot test on a Saturday for religious reasons can request Sunday testing, with a letter from a religious leader. College Board's calendar flyer says Sunday dates "immediately follow" Saturday dates, but its Sunday testing page shows two exceptions this year: the September Sunday is 20 September, not 13 September, and the October Sunday is 18 October, not 4 October. The remaining Sunday dates are 6 December 2026 and 7 March, 2 May and 6 June 2027. Sunday testing is not offered in India or Pakistan.
International students use the same dates and deadlines, and late registration is available worldwide. The waitlist is not: it is currently for US residents only, so an international student who misses the late deadline has no fallback for that date. For visa, ID and centre-capacity issues outside the US, see our guide for international SAT students.
Pick the date, then set two reminders
The 2026-27 SAT calendar has four dates left: 5 December, 6 March, 1 May and 5 June. The March test is the 6th, not the 13th, and its registration closes 19 February. For every date, the deadline that matters most is the change deadline 11 days out, because late registration, centre changes and the cheaper cancellation all close on it. Choose the date from your application plan, then put two reminders in the calendar: the registration deadline and the change deadline.
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Book a Free ConsultationSources checked 12 November 2026: College Board SAT Suite test dates and deadlines (2026-27 dates, deadlines, in-school windows and anticipated 2027-28 dates); College Board "Important Dates: SAT Suite 2026-27" calendar flyer (August and September deadlines); College Board score release dates; College Board test fees, international fees, cancelling a registration, changing registration info, waitlist, device lending and Sunday testing pages; College Board AP exam dates page (2027 AP Exams 3 to 14 May); MIT Admissions deadlines and requirements page. Competitor dates checked against PrepScholar's future SAT test dates page (updated 25 June 2025), AdmissionSight's SAT test dates page and CollegeHelpGuide's 2027-28 SAT dates page.